Pan American Pulasator Jig

[Diamond-digger]

Pan American Pulsator Jig

Back in 2010 Enlitnd1 posted some pictures of his gold mill, picture attached. The pictures included an image showing a duplex Pan American pulsating jig. What is unique about the picture are the flutter valves used to drive the jig. The only thing driving the jig is a water pump, very little mechanics and all hydraulic. It is a very cool set-up. Attached are pictures showing my attempt at building a simple version of Enlitnd1's jig. Mine works well and I used off the shelf parts from the local hardware store. I would like to learn more about these old water pulsation valves because I want to build a jig about the size that Enlitnd1 has. Any help or shared information would be great. The last image shows Enlitnd1 Duplex jig from his original post


Hope the video works.

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

I use a 700GPH 12v sump pump that came with my blue bowl. It easily handles the required water, even on my larger jig. These projects do require a huge amount of time...and money....LOL. I've spent the last 3 months, working 6 hours/day, 6 days/week in the shop, and several hundred dollars trying to come up with a unit that will recover gems without water. Still no luck. So, when somebody buys my plans for a jig, or anything else.....they're getting all those hours of work really cheaply.
On the water volume on the new jig.....figure 36 square inches of water, being moved about 1"....that's 36 cubic inches @ 120 pulses/minute, or about 4300 cubic inches/minute, or about 19 gallons/minute. Probably, because of diaphragm shape you're only getting 75% of that....say 15 gallons/minute +/-.
Jim

 

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[rodoconnor]

Jim, to paraphrase Edison " I haven't failed. I just found 10,000 ways that a light bulb doesn't work". I can sure appreciate your efforts.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Many thanks, Rod....LOL Sometimes, with all the failures, we forget that we're still moving forward, albeit, very slowly...Ha!
Jim

 

[spudnick]

Thanks for the volume specs Jim, hope you get that dry jig figured out. That would be advantageous for sure. Will update you with my project , at some point in the not to distant future... Ken

 

[Jim in Idaho]

I'll be looking foward to that, Ken.
Jim

 

[spudnick]

Well, i managed to get it complete enough for a trial run.. But the pulse valve was not working.. I need to make a different valve seat, as this one seems to have a continuous leak.. Back to the drawing board... Haha

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Very nice workmanship on that, Ken. Best of luck getting the valve seat sorted out. Please keep us posted. Would really like to see some video once you have it working.
Jim

 

[spudnick]

Thanks Jim, will try and post a new thread. pictures and video. First time starting a thread and video. Might take a while..Lol

Thread: pulse valve mineral jig build... need valve seat design help

 

[Diamond-digger]

I'm back after a long hiatus on this thread. Ken, after playing with the pulsators for more than a year now I would consider myself fairly knowledgeable. All of my pulsators are powered with nothing more than bilge pumps. My last build, pictures to come, uses a 1200 gph bilge. The pressure is low, just a few pounds. The valve diaphragm is made from a truck inner tube and the spring is only strong enough to make a seal with the inner valve. The inner valve uses a silicone rubber toilet tank float valve that presses down on the center PVC pipe. I will see if i can load pictures of it today.
The pulsators work well but not as good as Jim's build. So how well do the they work. 2 weeks ago I was prospecting for diamonds in Colorado. The pulsator set up found a diamond about than 1.5- 2 mm, along with a pile of indicators, ilmenites and garnet. Actually my short trip Colorado netted 3 small diamonds, one was found in a homemade saruca screen and two in the pulsator.

 

[Diamond-digger]

Hey Jim I'm back on the thread and treasure net, actively instead of waiting for an entire year to pass!. I tried the ragging idea I had and it works great. Almost all the quartz and feldspar rejects and the stuff with a SP greater than 3.1 sinks to the bottom of the hutch. I do classify the material down to 1/4 inch and run clean clay free material. It makes big difference and it does get the diamonds. The greater than 1/4 stuff but less than 1/2 is screened with a saruca. Heck if I miss a 1/4 inch plus diamond on a wet screen then my eyes are too old to be prospecting!

 

[Diamond-digger]

Wow, what a nice build. I want one. Ken you must be an engineer. Did you get your valve problem fixed? I know if the valve seat has the slightest leak it won't work. The pulsator height is also fairly important. The higher it is the easier it is to get the valve to pulse. I found that out by lots of trial and error. Apparently the longer tube sets up more suction to close the valve. The commercial pulsators like the YT-12, pictured in a precious post, use shorter tubes with more pressure, heavier diaphragms and stronger springs. I guess there is a trade off.

 

[Diamond-digger]

Here is my latest build. Actually its not that late since it was constructed more than 9 months ago. I increased all the hose diameters to get more water pulses to the box. The jig box uses jig shot with a specific gravity of about 3.00. During test runs it does a good job of separating the quartz and feldspar from the from the heavier stuff. I designed it to process diamond alluvial material. It works although the classification needs to be 1/4 inch and the clay fraction is removed. The fluid bed back end catches what the jig misses. The jig part seems to get it all. The whole thing was tested using small imperial topaz as tracers. Colored Topaz makes a good poor mans tracer for diamond jig experiments because the density is about the same as a diamond. I thought about adding a bank of rare earth magnets to pull the illmenite and hematite out.

 

[spudnick]

Diamond-digger , very nice, you have made a lot of improvements to your build.. Where would you put the bank of magnets ?, Should catch any heavy material for sure.. Hope you get time to go out and run a few yards through it.! keep us posted.. Ken

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Nice setup, DD! Where did you get the 3.0 SG shot?
Jim